Tag Archives: DOT

The GoAkamai.org website got rolled out this past Wed. 8/11 to quite a bit of media attention. Articles appeared in the Star Advertiser and pieces ran on KHON2, Hawaii News Now and KITV. There were even a couple of sites like this one and this one that liberally lifted the Star Advertiser article right onto their blog. [Ed. note: the two bloggers have since reformatted their blog posts to give proper attribution to the Star Advertiser article. 8/16/10] Obviously this is a very popular story. The GoAkamai site provides real time traffic stats on the major freeway routes through the Honolulu to Ewa corridors. Previous to this, people would listen to their radios for traffic updates to find out what road conditions were like. I'm not sure how this will impact the psychology of leaving from work but as you watch the traffic conditions from 3:30pm to 4;30pm you can literally see the colors change from green (no congestion) to yellow (moderate) to red (heavy) to black (stop and go). You can watch as the obvious bottlenecks get choked during rush hour. I suppose if you see the entire H1 airport viaduct turn black, which I have on many occasions, then staying in town for another half hour might not be a bad idea.
ICx Transportation, the company who built the website is quite experienced at providing this integrated information resource which brings together doppler radar sensor data and up to the minute camera shots of the major intersections. Areas like the San Francisco Bay Area and New Jersey also have systems installed like the one in Honolulu. Each site references the number 511 which you can dial for the latest traffic information. Something we do not have here in Hawaii. It is also clear that the highway systems in both the Bay Area and New Jersey area are much more extensive than here requiring an ICx system that scales to include orders of magnitude more sensors and camera. I did notice a mobile version of the 511.org site which hopefully will be available soon for GoAkamai. Of note, ICx Technologies is also involved with the City and County of Honolulu and State of Hawaii's Dept of Transportation's Joint Traffic Management Center that just broke ground on the Alapai Transit Center. It will be interesting to monitor what new features get added to the GoAkamai site as the JTMC and rail projects get underway.
We will get a chance to talk to Glen Fromm from ICx this Wed 8/18 at 5:00pm on Bytemarks Cafe KIPO-89.3FM, Hawaii Public Radio. He'll join us as a news guest to share some insights into the building of GoAkamai.org.